A silent night is probably not on the cards for Christine and Justin Clark with four little girls spending their first Christmas at home

Hands full: Justin and Christine Clark from Rotherham with their quadruplet girls

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New parents Christine and Justin Clark can look forward to many things this Christmas but it’s safe to assume that a silent night is not one of them. After nearly a decade trying for a baby, they now have a ready-made family with the UK’s first identical quadruplet girls.

Caroline, Darcy, Elisha and Alexis were delivered less than two minutes apart in March this year after the couple had just one round of IVF treatment.

Now they can’t wait to celebrate their first Christmas with the quads.

“It’s going to be lovely,” says Christine, 36. “It should be nicely noisy but we are keeping it low-key. The girls will have a liquidised Christmas dinner but it will be just the six of us. We wanted this to be our time, so we could appreciate what we have been given.”

The girls are all dressed differently in cute Santa smocks and snowman suits to help Mum and Dad tell them apart.

“It took us a while,” she says. “We tried dressing them differently and when I got used to who was who I switched the outfits and Justin would get confused.

The past nine months have been a whirlwind of baby bottles, wiping away tears and changing nappies. At first they used 200 every week and now it’s down to 140 – that’s 20 every day. “We’ve had to learn fast,” says Christine, a nurse from Rotherham, West Yorks,

She and Justin started trying for a baby after marrying in 2004. Eight years later they tried IVF, and though doctors harvested only one usable egg from Christine, it fertilised at once. Five weeks later she took a pregnancy test.

“The positive result was such a shock that Justin insisted I take another test and then another,” she recalls.

It was an even bigger surprise when they were told they were expecting not one, two or three, but four babies.

“I couldn’t believe it,” says Christine. “I was overjoyed but we were also warned about the risks. We were advised to reduce the number of babies but we resisted. If they were all healthy we wanted to let nature take its course.”

At 24 weeks Christine was admitted to hospital thanks to the same severe morning sickness that plagued Kate Middleton during her pregnancy. And in March this year the quads were delivered 10 weeks early by Caesarian section. Caroline weighed 2lbs 3oz, Darcy 2lbs, Elisha 2lb 14oz and Alexis 3lbs.

“We didn’t know they were all girls until they came out,” says Justin, a lorry driver who is now turning full-time dad. “All that mattered to either of us was that they were healthy.”

They were lucky. Doctors told them the chances of four identical, healthy babies being born from the same egg were so small they could not even calculate the odds.

Life changes beyond comprehension for all new parents, but for the Clarks it hit like a hurricane. “For the first few months we were sleeping for half an hour a night,” says Christine.

Justin, 44, adds: “Now our routine starts when they wake at 7.30am and finishes when we put them to bed at 6pm. It is non-stop all day.”

At feeding time Christine places each girl into her own rocker with the bottles balanced on bunched-up blankets so they can all feed at once.

“They are all developing their own personality,” says Justin. “Alexis is the chilled-out one, Caroline is the diva and Elisha looks out for the others. She gets unsettled if one of them isn’t around.”

On trips out they can fit only three baby seats in the back of their car, so the fourth goes in the passenger seat and Justin has to get the bus.

The constant attention can be overwhelming. Christine says: “People stare or stick their head into the pram or take pictures without asking. A whole crowd will gather if we stop to feed them.”

Money is tight too. Christine returns to work as a nurse in April but childcare for four babies is so expensive Justin will stay at home to look after them.

Luxuries have also been put on the back burner.

Christine says: “I would love to take them to see Father Christmas, but it’s £5 each and we can’t afford that. They don’t really understand it yet anyway. They will be 21 months next Christmas and should be able to take more in.

“This year is more for us –we are so lucky to have our four little miracles this Christmas.”

You can follow the girls on Facebook at ClarkQuadGirls and Twitter at @ClarkQuadGirls.